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Securing the skies has been a primary concern in Ukraine since Russia’s invasion began, and for NATO countries bordering Ukraine and Russia, it is a job that is shared. Fighter pilots from Italy, Germany, the United States and others rotate through countries on the alliance’s eastern flank to keep constant watch for any threat crossing into NATO air space. VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb caught up with members of the Italian Air Force as they practiced how to intercept threats entering Romania. Videographer: Mary Cieslak.
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Another earthquake struck the border region of Turkey and Syria on Monday, killing at least three people and coming two weeks after the area was devastated by a massive quake that left nearly 45,000 people dead.

Monday’s earthquake had a magnitude of 6.4 and centered in the town of Defne, in Turkey’s Hatay province, an area that was severely damaged by the February 6 quake.

The new quake was felt in multiple countries, including Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt, and was followed by a 5.8 magnitude earthquake.

Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said three people were killed and more than 200 others were injured.

“All of a sudden, the building shook. I immediately ran downstairs from the second floor. It shook terribly. It’s very sad,” Gaziantep resident Ahmet Kilic told VOA’s Turkish Service.

He said he was afraid to return to his house because he lives alone.

Another Gaziantep resident, Zeynep Deveci, told VOA he had just returned to his home following the February 6 quake.

“Yesterday I came back, and today we are on the street again. We don’t know what our end will be.”

Rescue workers were searching in several collapsed buildings in Hatay where people were believed to be trapped.

Syria’s state news agency, SANA, reported that six people were injured in Aleppo.

Also Monday, a U.N. convoy carrying relief supplies made its way through a newly opened border crossing into Syria at Al-Ra’ee.

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said there are now three fully operating border crossings for the United Nations to enter Syria.

He said the U.N. has now dispatched 227 trucks to rebel-held areas in northwest Syria and said preparations are underway to send more trucks through all three border crossings.

In Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited Hatay earlier on Monday and said his government would begin next month to construct nearly 200,000 new homes in the province.

Also Monday, Erdogan met in Ankara with visiting U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who a day earlier announced U.S. pledges of $100 million in additional aid for Turkey and Syria.

The new aid brings the total U.S. assistance to $185 million and will be provided to international and nongovernmental groups that have been involved in the rescue and recovery efforts.

“The United States is here to support you in your time of need, and we will be by your side as long as it takes to recover and rebuild,” Blinken told reporters Monday during a joint news conference with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu.

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters. VOA’s Turkish Service and United Nations correspondent Margaret Besheer contributed to this report.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin could meet with the Chinese Communist Party’s top diplomat in Moscow, the Kremlin said Monday. 

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that “we don’t rule out” Putin’s meeting with Wang Yi, the Chinese Communist Party’s most senior foreign policy official, who is visiting the Russian capital. 

Peskov hailed Russia-China ties as “multidimensional and allied in nature.” 

Wang’s visit to Moscow comes as President Joe Biden made an unannounced visit to Ukraine on Monday to meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and show U.S. support for Kyiv on the eve of the Russian military operation’s one-year anniversary. 

Wang’s trip to Russia follows talks Saturday with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on the sidelines of an international security conference in Munich. 

Blinken said in a tweet after the meeting that he reiterated a warning to China on providing assistance to Russia in Ukraine, including assisting Moscow with evading sanctions the West has imposed on Moscow. 

China, which has declared a “no limits” friendship with Russia, has pointedly refused to criticize Moscow’s actions, blaming the U.S. and NATO for provoking the Kremlin, and has blasted the punishing sanctions imposed on Russia. 

Russia, in turn, has strongly backed China amid the tensions with the U.S. over Taiwan. 

The two nations have held a series of military drills that showcased increasingly close defense ties amid tensions with the United States. 
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Russia showed up in force Monday at an arms fair in the United Arab Emirates, displaying combat-tested weapons up for export, including rifles and air defense systems. 

At an isolated pavilion at the International Defense Exhibition (IDEX) in Abu Dhabi, Moscow’s state arms exporter Rosoboronexport said it had more than 200 full-scale models of armament, ammunition and military gear. 

Russian armored vehicles, attack helicopters and anti-aircraft missile systems were also on display at IDEX, which opened Monday, as crippling Western sanctions push President Vladimir Putin to seek new markets for arms exports. 

The UAE has maintained a neutral stance toward Russia’s war in Ukraine, which is nearing its one-year anniversary. 

The oil-rich Gulf nation has also emerged as a top destination for rich Russian emigres fleeing the impact of Western sanctions. 

Russia is one of 65 countries participating in the biennial arms fair in the UAE capital, which runs until the end of the week and is considered the region’s largest.  

Russian Deputy Premier Denis Manturov, who is under sanctions, visited IDEX on Monday, according to Russian state news agency TASS 

“The UAE has retained its first place among the countries of the Arab world in terms of trade with the Russian Federation,” TASS quoted him as saying. 

“In 2022, trade between Russia and the UAE increased by 68% and reached $9 billion,” he said. 

‘Highly competitive’  

Russia is the second-largest arms exporter in the world after the United States, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. 

In a statement ahead of IDEX, Rosoboronexport head Alexander Mikheev called Middle Eastern states “important partners” and said his firm was “working out proposals … that could be of immediate interest” to countries in the region. 

He told TASS at IDEX on Monday that Rosoboronexport was preparing to offer reconnaissance and strike drones to foreign partners. 

Russia supplied 20% of the Middle East’s arms imports between 2000-2019, but the Arab Gulf’s arms market has been firmly dominated by American and European firms, said Albert Vidal, a Fulbright scholar at Georgetown University. 

“While Russian firms may be trying to take advantage of the UAE’s search for a more diversified pool of suppliers, they will not have an easy time locking defense contracts with Abu Dhabi,” he told AFP. 

“In addition to traditional Western suppliers, they now face highly competitive arms exporters like South Korea, Israel and Turkey, all of which are already cooperating closely with the Emirati defense industry.”

Israel cooperation

Beyond Russia, Israel also made waves at the Naval Defense and Maritime Security Exhibition (NAVDEX) which opened alongside IDEX.

The UAE and Israel revealed off the coast of Abu Dhabi their first jointly created unmanned vessel. 

The craft, which has advanced sensors and imaging systems and can be used for surveillance, reconnaissance and detecting mines, was created by Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) and Emirati defense consortium EDGE. 

Oren Guter, a former navy captain who leads IAI’s naval program, said the joint project would counter “threats here in the area” but that the aim was also to deploy vessels abroad. 

The UAE and Israel have steadily deepened their military partnership, including defense procurement, since they normalized relations in 2020 as part of the U.S.-brokered Abraham Accords. 

In January 2022, Israel’s defense electronics company Elbit Systems said its subsidiary in the UAE was awarded an approximately $53 million contract to supply systems to the UAE air force. 

Emirati and Israeli defense firms are also working to develop an autonomous counter-drone system. 

Countering maritime threats from Iran is “a natural area” of focus for the UAE-Israel partnership, said Torbjorn Soltvedt of the risk intelligence firm Verisk Maplecroft. 

“Countering the growing threat to shipping in the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman will be a priority, as both Israeli and Emirati ships have been targeted in Iran-backed drone and missile attacks,” Soltvedt told AFP. 

On Sunday, Israel accused Iran of attacking an Israeli-linked tanker off the coast of Oman in a strike that caused minor damage. It was the second such accusation this year. 
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In civilian life, Dmytro was a bicycle repairman in western Ukraine. Now he fixes tanks and other armored vehicles, making them fit for the battlefield.

“The way both work is basically the same,” he insists at a secret military repair yard behind the eastern front line.  

“But of course, there are differences.”

Dmytro, 45, and his younger brother, Roman, 34, both work as mechanics in the 14th Mechanized Brigade of the Ukrainian Army.

Their expertise is called in for the bigger problems that can’t be dealt with immediately by soldiers on the ground.

At the yard, mechanics are working on a BMP-3 infantry combat vehicle seized from the Russians during last year’s Ukrainian counteroffensive in the Kharkiv region.

“The Ukrainian Army doesn’t have one,” says Ruslan, 47, who has been a soldier for 30 years and is in charge of the repair shop soldiers.

“To fix it we’ve had to take apart another vehicle for its parts,” he adds over the sound of metal bashing.

In a corner, a BMP-1 — used by both sides in the conflict — is gradually being cannibalized in a flash of grinding sparks.

Elsewhere four mechanics with head torches pore over the pistons, pipes and wires of a giant extracted engine, like transplant surgeons in an operating theater.

Others grease and oil parts or disappear inside the heavy armor of the fighting vehicles, brandishing giant spanners and ratchets purposefully.

“Fixing one can take from one day to one month,” says Ruslan, unperturbed at the prospect of getting the Russian BMP-3 up and running without an instruction manual.

“Everything is on the internet,” he shrugs, as if it was as simple as downloading a “how to” guide to put up a flatpack bookshelf or kitchen cabinet.

“It’s all about the parts really.”

Fixed up 

In the yard, abandoned Russian towed artillery guns and even a giant T-80 tank wait to be seen, their letter “Z” markings still clearly visible.

The T-80, with the Donbas mud caked and dried on its heavy caterpillar tracks, will be transported elsewhere in Ukraine for engineers to look at its electronics.

But most of the appropriated Russian equipment doesn’t need much work, says Ruslan.

“This isn’t really badly damaged,” he says of the 19-tonne BMP-3.

“The Russians don’t care about their own armored vehicles. Sometimes you can fix it. Maybe they left it because they don’t know how to?” he suggests.

Since the start of the war February 24 last year, the commander estimates that they have dealt with up to 100 abandoned and appropriated Russian armored vehicles at the workshop.

Once they have been fixed and repainted with the white cross of the Ukrainian Army or its trident emblem, they can be redeployed — but against the Russians.

New Western equipment that Ukraine hopes can turn the conflict decisively in its favor is expected to arrive in the coming weeks.

It includes 31 U.S. Abrams battle tanks, 14 Challenger 2s from the U.K. and the same number of Leopard 2s from Germany.

Ruslan refuses to say whether they’ll be providing any mechanical back-up for the new arrivals but insists they have the expertise if needed.

“We already have staff who are trained to repair and understand tanks,” he says.
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Myanmar officials and entities were placed under a sixth round of European Union sanctions on Monday over the 2021 military coup that ousted the democratically elected government of de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi and sparked global outrage. 

The latest sanctions include restrictions on nine people and seven entities whom the EU says have contributed to the escalating violence and human rights violations in the Southeast Asian country.  

The sanctioned individuals include the energy minister, high-ranking officers, politicians, and prominent businesspeople who have supported the regime. 

Sanctions were also placed on departments in the Ministry of Defense, along with a state-owned enterprise under its jurisdiction, and private companies that supply funds and arms to the military.  

The EU has restrictive measures on 93 individuals and 18 entities. Those who are sanctioned are subject to an asset freeze and a travel ban in EU territory.  

Additionally, export restrictions are being placed on equipment for “monitoring communications which might be used for internal repression,” along with EU prohibition of military training and cooperation with the Tatmadaw, the Myanmar military.  

The Feb. 1, 2021, coup happened after the military rejected the outcome of November 2020 elections, in which Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party won in a landslide. The junta claimed widespread electoral fraud, allegations the civilian electoral commission denied before it was disbanded. 

Human Rights Watch says that since the coup, military forces have “committed numerous crimes against humanity and war crimes across the country,” documented by the organization and other groups.

Earlier this month, the ruling council declared martial law in more than three dozen of the country’s 330 townships and extended a six-month state of emergency. The military has also been conducting airstrikes targeting a resistance movement that emerged following the coup. 

As of February 20, nearly 20,000 political prisoners have been detained and more than 3,000 people have been killed by the military, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a rights monitoring organization. 

In a press release Monday, the EU said that it condemns “in the strongest possible terms the grave human rights violations, including sexual and gender-based violence, the persecution of civil society, human rights defenders and journalists, attacks on the civilian population, targeting also children and persons belonging to ethnic and religious minorities across the country, and recent deadly air strikes on civilian targets, including on schools and hospitals, by the Myanmar armed forces.”

VOA’s Burmese Service contributed to this report. Some information came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.  
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Weeks of dry winter weather have raised concerns that Italy could face another drought after last summer’s emergency, with the Alps having received less than half of their normal snowfall, according to scientists and environmental groups.

Italian rivers and lakes are suffering from severe lack of water, the Legambiente environmental group said on Monday, with attention focused on the north of the country.

The Po, Italy’s longest river which runs from the Alps in the northwest to the Adriatic has 61% less water than normal at this time of year, it added in a statement.

Last July Italy declared a state of emergency for areas surrounding the Po, which accounts for roughly a third of the country’s agricultural production and suffered its worst drought for 70 years.

“We are in a water deficit situation that has been building up since the winter of 2020-2021,” climate expert Massimiliano Pasqui from Italian scientific research institute CNR was quoted as saying by daily Corriere della Sera.

“We need to recover 500 millimeters in the north-western regions: we need 50 days of rain,” he added.

Water levels on Lake Garda in northern Italy have fallen to record lows, making it possible to reach the small island of San Biagio on the lake via an exposed pathway.

An anticyclone has been dominating the weather in western Europe for 15 days, bringing mild temperatures more normally seen in late spring.

Latest weather forecasts do however signal the arrival of much-needed precipitation and snow in the Alps in coming days.
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The BBC said Monday it has uncovered evidence of sexual exploitation on Kenyan tea plantations that supply some of Britain’s most popular brands.

In a video posted on the BBC World website, a supervisor on a Kenyan tea farm is seen with an undercover reporter and he asks her to touch him and undress.

He did not know he was being taped and a BBC crew was nearby for the reporter’s protection.

More than 70 women told the BBC that that they had been sexually exploited by their supervisors on farms owned by Unilever, Lipton and James Finlay & Co. The companies supply some of Britain’s most popular brands, including PG Tips and Lipton.

Some women told the BBC that work is scarce and they felt that they did not have any options.

On another plantation, the same undercover reporter attended an induction day for new recruits where a manager gave a speech saying the company had a zero-tolerance sexual harassment policy.

Afterwards, the manager invited her to meet him in a hotel bar that evening and suggested later that they go to his compound, the BBC reports.

Finley told the BBC that it has decided to investigate to determine if their Kenyan operation has “an endemic issue with sexual violence.”

Lipton, which bought one of the plantations from Unilever while the BBC investigation was underway, has also launched an investigation.
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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is meeting Monday with Turkish leaders in Ankara, with Turkey’s recovery from a devastating earthquake and its position as a necessary vote for expanding NATO among the top agenda items. 

Blinken’s schedule includes talks with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. 

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which this week reaches its one-year anniversary, prompted Sweden and Finland to seek entry to the NATO defensive alliance, a process that requires unanimous consent of the existing members. Hungary and Turkey are the only ones yet to approve the new candidates. 

Turkey has expressed security concerns regarding Sweden, saying it has been too lenient toward groups that Turkey considers terror organizations. 

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said last week during his own visit to Turkey that “the time is now” for Turkey to ratify both countries as new NATO members.   

Cavusolgu and Erdogan have each said Turkey may evaluate the two bids separately and could approve Finland’s on its own.  

Earthquake aid 

Blinken arrived Sunday in Turkey, his first visit to the country since becoming the top U.S. diplomat two years ago. 

He brought pledges of $100 million in additional U.S. aid for Turkey and Syria after the February 6 earthquake that has killed more than 44,000 people. 

“I look forward to learning as much as I can from our Turkish partners about what the needs are going forward, how we can best help, how we can best rally resources in support of people here,” Blinken said on his arrival. 

Some information for this story came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters 
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Antiwar German movie “All Quiet on the Western Front” won seven prizes, including best picture, at the British Academy Film Awards on Sunday, building the somber drama’s momentum as awards season rolls toward its climax at next month’s Oscars. 

Irish tragicomedy “The Banshees of Inisherin” and rock biopic “Elvis” took four prizes each. 

“All Quiet,” a visceral depiction of life and death in the World War I trenches, based on Erich Maria Remarque’s classic novel, won Edward Berger the best director award. Its other trophies included adapted screenplay, cinematography, best score, best sound and best film not in English. 

Austin Butler was a surprise best actor winner for “Elvis.” Baz Lurhmann’s flamboyant musical also won for casting, costume design and hair and makeup. Cate Blanchett won the best actress prize for orchestral drama “Tár.” 

Martin McDonagh’s “Banshees,” the bleakly comic story of a friendship gone sour, was named best British film. 

“Best what award?” joked McDonagh of the film, which was shot in Ireland with a largely Irish cast and crew. It has British funding, and McDonagh was born in Britain to Irish parents. 

“Banshees” also won for McDonagh’s original screenplay, and awards for Kerry Condon as best supporting actress and Barry Keoghan for best supporting actor. 

The prizes — officially the EE BAFTA Film Awards — are Britain’s equivalent of Hollywood’s Academy Awards and are watched closely for hints of who may win at the Oscars on March 12. 

Madcap metaverse romp “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” the Academy Awards front-runner, was the night’s big loser, winning just one prize from its 10 BAFTA nominations, for editing. 

Actor Richard E. Grant was a suave and self-deprecating host — with support from TV presenter Alison Hammond — for the ceremony at London’s Royal Festival Hall, where the U.K.’s movie academy heralded its strides to become more diverse but said there was more to be done. 

Grant joked in his opening monologue about the infamous altercation between Will Smith and Chris Rock at last year’s Oscars. 

“Nobody on my watch gets slapped tonight,” he said. “Except on the back.” 

Guests and presenters walking the red carpet on the south bank of the River Thames included Colin Farrell, Ana de Armas, Eddie Redmayne, Brian Cox, Florence Pugh, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Cynthia Erivo, Julianne Moore and Lily James. 

Heir to the throne Prince William, who is president of Britain’s film and television academy, was in the audience alongside his wife, Kate.  

Helen Mirren paid tribute to William’s grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, who died in September. Mirren, who portrayed the late monarch onscreen in “The Queen” and onstage in “The Audience,” called Elizabeth “the nation’s leading lady.” 

Britain’s film academy introduced changes to increase the awards’ diversity in 2020, when no women were nominated as best director for the seventh year running and all 20 nominees in the lead and supporting performer categories were white. 

This year there were 11 female directors up for awards across all categories, including documentary and animated films. But just one of the main best-director nominees was female: Gina Prince-Bythewood for “The Woman King.” 

BAFTA chair Krishnendu Majumdar said the “vital work of levelling the playing field” would continue. 

Writer-director Charlotte Wells won the prize for best British debut for the affecting father-daughter drama “Aftersun.” Three-time Oscar winner Sandy Powell became the first costume designer to be awarded the academy’s top honor, the BAFTA fellowship. 

The harsh world outside showbiz intruded on the awards when Bulgarian journalist Christo Grozev, who works for investigative website Bellingcat, said he was not allowed to attend the awards because of a risk to public security. He features in “Navalny,” a film about jailed Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny that won the best documentary BAFTA. 

“Navalny” producer Odessa Rae dedicated the award to Grozev, “our Bulgarian nerd with a laptop, who could not be with us tonight because his life is under threat by the Russian government and Vladimir Putin.” 
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The U.N. nuclear watchdog said on Sunday it was in discussions with Iran about the results of recent verification work there soon after a Bloomberg News report that it had detected uranium enriched to 84% purity, which is close to weapons grade.

Iran has been enriching uranium to up to 60% purity since April 2021. Three months ago, it started enriching to that level at a second site, Fordow, which is dug into a mountain. Weapons grade is around 90%.

“The IAEA is aware of recent media reports relating to uranium enrichment levels in Iran,” the International Atomic Energy Agency said on Twitter. “The IAEA is discussing with Iran the results of recent Agency verification activities and will inform the IAEA Board of Governors as appropriate.”

The IAEA declined to comment to Reuters before issuing the tweet.

The IAEA, which inspects Iran’s nuclear facilities, flags significant developments in Iran’s activities either in ad hoc reports to the 35-nation Board of Governors or regular quarterly ones issued before board meetings.

Diplomats said on Sunday evening that the IAEA so far had not issued any such report.

Bloomberg reported earlier Sunday that the IAEA was trying to clarify how Iran enriched uranium to 84%, citing two senior diplomats.

Reuters was not able to independently confirm the report.

“Inspectors need to determine whether Iran intentionally produced the material, or whether the concentration was an unintended accumulation within the network of pipes connecting the hundreds of fast-spinning centrifuges used to separate the isotopes,” Bloomberg reported.

It added that the detected material could have been “mistakenly accumulated because of technical difficulties in operating the centrifuge cascades — something that has happened before,” citing one of the diplomats.
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The U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressed concern Sunday that China may be contemplating sending lethal assistance to support Russia’s war in Ukraine. He made the comments before landing in Turkey, where he toured the damage caused by the recent earthquakes. U.S.-China tensions have spiked after the U.S. shot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon earlier this month. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias reports. Ezel Sahinkaya of VOA’s Turkish Service contributed.
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The United States is sending another $100 million in humanitarian assistance to Turkey and Syria to help the two countries cope with the devastating earthquake that has killed more than 46,000 people and left millions homeless.

The new aid brings the total U.S. assistance to $185 million and will be provided to international and nongovernmental groups that have been involved in the rescue and recovery efforts.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who was visiting Turkey on Sunday to observe firsthand the devastating aftermath of the 7.8 magnitude earthquake, said the new assistance would help in the purchase of such items as blankets, mattresses, food packs, warm clothing, tents, and shelter materials.

The aid will also support medicine and health services, clean water and sanitation efforts, and programs supporting the education of children and youth impacted by the earthquake.

Blinken took a helicopter tour of some of the earthquake devastation Sunday with his Turkish counterpart, Mevlut Cavusoglu. Blinken is expected to meet with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday.

The top U.S. diplomat’s meetings in Turkey follow a visit to Washington by Cavusoglu last month. The two NATO allies have tried to mend fences over disagreements on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, plus Sweden and Finland’s bids to join the alliance.

Against all odds, rescue workers have continued to recover people from the rubble of the February 6 earthquake, but the head of the country’s disaster response agency has said their efforts would end Sunday.

VOA State Department correspondent Nike Ching contributed to this report.

 
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Russia is not happy with the comments the French president made in a newspaper interview.

Emmanuel Macron told Le Journal du Dimanche that France wanted to see Russia defeated in Ukraine, but not crushed.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the French leader’s comments were “priceless” and showed that the West was talking about regime change in Russia.

Macron also told the newspaper that he did not see an alternative to Russia’s current leader.

“All the options other than Vladimir Putin in the current system seem worse to me,” the French leader told the newspaper.

Russia, led by Putin, invaded Ukraine a year ago.
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Andrew Lloyd Webber, the English composer who created the scores for blockbuster musicals such as “Cats,” “The Phantom of the Opera” and “Evita,” has written the anthem for King Charles III’s coronation, adapting a piece of church music that encourages singers to make a “joyful noise.”

The work by Webber is one of a dozen new pieces Charles commissioned for the grand occasion taking place May 6 at Westminster Abbey. It includes words adapted from Psalm 98 and is scored specifically for the abbey’s choir and organ.

“I hope my anthem reflects this joyful occasion,” Webber said in a statement distributed by Buckingham Palace. 

The program for the king’s coronation ceremony includes older music and new compositions as the palace seeks to blend traditional and modern elements that reflect the realities of modern Britain. New pieces were composed by artists with roots in all four of the United Kingdom’s constituent nations, as well as in the Commonwealth and foreign countries that have sent so many people to its shores.

The service will include works by William Byrd (1543–1623), George Frideric Handel (1685–1759), Edward Elgar (1857–1934), Henry Walford Davies (1869–1941), William Walton (1902–1983), Hubert Parry (1848–1918) and Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872–1958), whose music has featured in previous coronations, along with a piece from the contemporary Welsh composer Karl Jenkins.

There will also be new works by Sarah Class, Nigel Hess, Paul Mealor, Tarik O’Regan, Roxanna Panufnik, Shirley J. Thompson, Judith Weir, Roderick Williams and Debbie Wiseman.

“The decision to combine old and new reflects the cultural breadth of the age in which we live,” said Andrew Nethsingha, the organist and master of choristers at Westminster Abbey.

“Coronations have taken place in Westminster Abbey since 1066. It has been a privilege to collaborate with his majesty in choosing fine musicians and accessible, communicative music for this great occasion,” Nethsingha said.

In all, six orchestral commissions, five choral commissions and one organ commission — spanning the classical, sacred, film, television and musical theater genres — were created for the coronation.

The program will also include personal touches, including a musical tribute to Charles’ late father, Prince Philip, who was born a Greek prince. The new monarch requested Greek Orthodox music, which will be performed by the Byzantine Chant Ensemble.

Though specifics on some of the material are being kept under wraps, one hymn will definitely be part of the service: Handel’s “Zadok the Priest.”

The hymn, with its robust chorus of “God Save the King,” has been played at every coronation since it was commissioned for the coronation of King George II in 1727. 
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Ukraine shot down at least six balloons over Kyiv on Wednesday, according to the British Defense Ministry’s daily intelligence update on Ukraine posted on Twitter.

The report said the Ukrainian armed forces spotted the balloons with radar reflectors suspended from them over Kyiv.

On Feb. 12, Ukraine’s air force said it spotted balloons over eastern Dnipropetrovsk, according to the report.

“It is likely that the balloons were Russian,” the ministry said, adding that the aircraft “likely represent” a new Russian information-gathering tactic to gain information about Ukrainian air defense systems that could “compel the Ukrainians to expend valuable stocks of surface to air missiles and ammunition.”

The British Defense Ministry said Moldovan airspace was closed Tuesday for several hours because of a balloon-shaped object. “There is a realistic possibility that this was a Russian balloon that had drifted from Ukrainian airspace,” the ministry said.

The Defense Ministry did not say whether the balloons resembled the balloons recently spotted and shot down over North America.

Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy said in his daily address Saturday that almost all of Ukraine ended the day with power which he said was “another confirmation of our resilience.”
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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visits Turkey on Sunday to observe firsthand the devastating aftermath of of the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that has killed more than 46,000 and left millions homeless in Turkey and neighboring Syria.

While in Turkey, he is expected to meet with Turkey President Tayyip Erdogan and Mevlut Cavusoglu, Blinken’s Turkish counterpart.

The top U.S. diplomat’s meetings in Turkey follow a visit to Washington by Cavusoglu last month. The two NATO allies have tried to mend fences over disagreements on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, plus Sweden’s and Finland’s bids to enter NATO.

Against all odds, rescue workers have continued to recover people from the rubble of the February 6 earthquake, but the head of the country’s disaster response agency has said their efforts would end Sunday.
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In a dusty workshop in northern Lithuania, a dozen men are transforming hundreds of wheel rims into potbelly stoves to warm Ukrainians huddled in trenches and bomb shelters. As the sparks subside, one welder marks the countertop: 36 made that day. Hours later, they’ve reached 60.

People from across Lithuania send old wheel rims to the volunteers gathering weekly in Siauliai, the Baltic country’s fourth-largest city. Two cars loaded with wood stoves wait outside the workshop ahead of the long night drive south.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine last February, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia — three states on NATO’s eastern flank scarred by decades of Soviet-era occupation — have been among the top donors to Kyiv.

Linas Kojala, director of the Europe Studies Center in Lithuania’s capital Vilnius, said Ukraine’s successful resistance “is a matter of existential importance” to the Baltic countries, which share its experience of Russian rule.

“Not only political elites, but entire societies are involved in supporting Ukraine,” Kojala told the AP.

In Siauliai, Edgaras Liakavicius said his team has sent about 600 stoves to Ukraine.

“Everybody here … understands the situation of every man, every soldier, the conditions they live in now in Ukraine,” Liakavicius, who works for a local metal processing plant, told the AP.

Jaana Ratas, who heads an effort in Tallinn, Estonia, to make camouflage nets for Ukrainian soldiers, echoed his words.

“My family and most Estonians, they still remember (the Soviet occupation),” she said.

Ratas chose a symbolic location for her project. Five days a week, Estonian and Ukrainian women gather at Tallinn’s Museum of Occupations and Freedom to weave the nets from donated fabrics.

Lyudmila Likhopud, a 76-year-old refugee from Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, said the work has lifted her out of depression.

“I started feeling that I can be useful,” she told the AP.

In Latvia’s capital of Riga, Anzhela Kazakova — who ran a furniture store in the Black Sea port of Odesa — is one of 30 Ukrainian refugees working for Atlas Aerospace, a drone manufacturer that has supplied more than 300 kits to the Ukrainian army.

Ivan Tolchinsky, Atlas Aerospace’s founder and CEO, grew up in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, held by Kremlin-backed separatists since 2014. He had long petitioned both the EU and Ukraine to supply drones to Kyiv’s forces fighting the separatists. Final permission arrived a day before Moscow’s full-scale invasion, he said.

Atlas Aerospace has since increased production 20-fold, Tolchinsky said, and is planning to open a site in Ukraine despite withering Russian strikes on infrastructure.

Tolchinsky’s drones are just some of the weapons flowing to Kyiv from its Baltic allies. Together with their southern neighbor Poland — another NATO and European Union member with a history of Soviet oppression — the three small states rank among the biggest donors per gross domestic product helping Ukraine.

Lithuania, with a mere 2.8 million inhabitants, was the first country to send Stinger air defense missiles, according to Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov.

One of the latest Lithuanian initiatives is a crowdfunding drive to help Ukraine defend itself against Russian drones and missiles. Launched in late January, it initially aimed to raise 5 million euros by the Feb. 24 anniversary of the invasion. That goal was reached within weeks, and organizers have since doubled it as donations keep flowing.

One fundraising group has grown into a major player that participates in international trading, purchasing military equipment for Kyiv.

“We have expanded 10 times in less than a year. (We used to supply) five drones in one batch, but now it’s 50 or more,” said Jonas Ohman, founder of the nongovernmental organization Blue/Yellow. The group recently won a bid for military optics, edging out rivals including the Indian military, and clinched a contract with an Israeli company for multipurpose high sensitivity radars for Kyiv.

“It’s entirely another level now,” Ohman said.

In Poland, millions of zlotys have been raised to fund everything from advanced weapons to treating the wounded. Backed by over 220,000 contributors, journalist Slawomir Sierakowski was able to gather almost 25 million zlotys ($5.6 million) to buy an advanced Bayraktar drone for Ukraine.

Ohman, the head of the Lithuanian NGO, drew parallels between his compatriots’ readiness to help Kyiv and local partisan movements fighting Soviet rule after World War II.

“It is about personal responsibility in tough times,” he said. “Just like in 1945 when (the) Soviets returned, the government was gone, but the struggle for freedom continued in the woods for years.”
…

On the deserted edge of a town near the front line in eastern Ukraine, a Ukrainian soldier kneels in a firing position, a gloved finger on the trigger of his high-powered rifle.

“The Russians want to control this road,” says his commander, who goes by the call sign “Virus,” looking up and down a snow-covered residential street.

Dogs bark behind the garden walls and beyond as small-arms fire crackles in the near distance, in between the muffled sound of artillery shelling.

As the anniversary of Russia’s invasion approaches Friday, expectations are high that the fighting will intensify in Ukraine.

But for Virus and his “Witcher” unit, who have been deployed across the disputed eastern region of Donetsk, there has been no letup in Russian attacks for the last 12 months.

Up and down the front line, particularly in the city of Bakhmut, Russian forces have put Ukrainian troops under constant pressure, he said.

He insists that the Ukrainian line is holding — and that they are ready if the conflict escalates.

“If you ask me, for our unit the situation hasn’t changed,” he said before heading out into a blizzard, hoping to take advantage of the cover of gray skies and snow drifts to scout out positions.

“Some people can talk about a new offensive, but the Russians attack every day,” he told AFP.

‘Meat grinder’

The latest Western battle tanks are on their way to Ukraine, after weeks of hesitation by its allies for fear of escalating the conflict into a direct fight between NATO and Russia.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s shopping list of urgently needed materiel now includes fighter jets, which has again given the alliance pause.

Virus, with a helmet-mounted camera, AR-15 assault rifle and warm, waterproof camouflage clothing to keep out the stinging cold, certainly does not appear to lack the latest kit.

But he agrees that on the ground, “aviation technology” would help defend against Russian airstrikes in his sector and stem the flow of attacks from waves of enemy troops.

Russian tactics, particularly the use of the Wagner mercenary group in Bakhmut, bolstered by inexperienced convicts, have come under scrutiny.

The heavy losses and monthslong war of attrition for control of the city has seen it dubbed graphically as “the meat grinder.”

But Virus says Russia is using similar tactics elsewhere on the eastern front, sending five groups of 10 men in quick succession to attack Ukrainian positions.

Ukrainian troops pick off the initial waves, he said.

But he added: “By the time we get to the fifth, they capture the trench because we don’t have time to reload our weapons, just because we have no time to kill them.”

“They don’t care about their soldiers’ lives.”

House for headquarters

The men from Witcher, fueled by dried noodles, biscuits, sweets and sugary tea, busy themselves at their base in a small, abandoned house that appears to have belonged to an elderly resident.

Open ammunition boxes lie on the floor, with semiautomatic weapons propped up against a living room cabinet of crockery and china ornaments, in a floral flock wallpapered room.

Nearly a year into the conflict, and with little sign of an end in sight, Virus and his men said high morale and a sense of common purpose had sustained the Ukrainian resistance.

One member of the unit, radio operator “Spider,” said he is prepared to turn his hand to anything to push Russia out of Ukraine to secure peace.

“If I’m needed to shoot a machine gun, I’ll do it,” he said. “If I’m needed to operate an anti-tank system, I’ll do that too.”
…

The U.S. officially declared that Russia has committed crimes against humanity in Ukraine. 

In a landmark speech Saturday at the Munich Security Conference, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, a former prosecutor, offered a detailed account of the egregious crimes committed by Russia against Ukraine’s civilian population.  

Harris cited evidence, including the scores of victims found in Bucha shortly after Russia’s invasion last February; the March 9 bombing of a Mariupol maternity hospital that killed three people, including a child; and the sexual assault of a 4-year-old by a Russian soldier identified by a U.N. report. She condemned these actions as “barbaric and inhumane.”  

Harris said the U.S. will continue to help Ukraine further investigate such crimes. 

“And I say to all those who have perpetrated these crimes, and to their superiors who are complicit in these crimes, you will be held to account,” Harris said. 

U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham, who is attending the conference, had praise for Harris’ words. 

“The vice president’s speech today was one of the most consequential speeches ever made in the Munich Security Conference,” Graham told reporters in Munich. 

“The Chinese said something today that was very important … they reject the idea of nuclear weapons being used in the conflict,” he said of the war in Ukraine. “Between what the Chinese said and what the vice president said, this is a bad day for Russia.” 

Ukraine Ambassador to the U.S. Oksana Markarova hailed Harris’ declaration during an interview Saturday with Tatiana Vorozhko of VOA’s Ukrainian service. 

“Whether it’s war crimes in Ukraine, whether it’s a crime of aggression, whether it’s the genocide and or other crimes that Russia committed in Ukraine, it’s very important for Ukraine to hold them accountable,” she said. “But I think it’s very important for all of us — and this is what Madam Vice President clearly said — that they have to be held accountable for these horrible crimes. And it’s important for everyone who believes in the same values.” 

In addition to the evidence Harris presented Saturday, The Conflict Observatory, a program supported by the U.S. Department of State, released an independent report detailing a network of Russia-run sites and processes used to relocate thousands of Ukraine’s children to areas under Russian government control.   

“Mounting evidence of Russia’s actions lays bare the Kremlin’s aims to deny and suppress Ukraine’s identity, history, and culture,” the statement read. “The devastating impacts of Putin’s war on Ukraine’s children will be felt for generations.  The United States will stand with Ukraine and pursue accountability for Russia’s appalling abuses for as long as it takes.”

While crimes against humanity are not officially codified in an international treaty, they are still adjudicated in the International Criminal Court and other global bodies, according to the United Nations Office on Genocide Prevention.  

“In contrast with genocide, crimes against humanity do not need to target a specific group,” the U.N. said. “Instead, the victim of the attack can be any civilian population, regardless of its affiliation or identity.”  

In the U.S. on Friday, the U.S. senators from the state of West Virginia, Joe Manchin, a Democrat, and Shelley Moore Capito, a Republican, introduced on Friday a bipartisan resolution recognizing Russia’s war in Ukraine as genocide. 

“Putin’s unprovoked invasion and terrible acts of war have amounted to a genocide against the Ukrainian people,” Manchin said.  “It is our responsibility as a world power and democratic leader to support our allies in times of need and we must hold Russia accountable for its continued atrocities against Ukraine. Our bipartisan resolution is an important step towards recognizing the depths of Russia’s war crimes and reaffirming America’s commitment to support the Ukrainian people as they defend their country from tyranny.”  

Bakhmut offensive  

Ukrainian soldiers holding off a Russian offensive on the small eastern city of Bakhmut are pleading for more weapons. 

“Give us more military equipment, more weapons, and we will deal with the Russian occupier, we will destroy them,” said Dmytro, a serviceman standing in the snow near Bakhmut, Reuters reported. 

Russian rockets and artillery pummeled a residential district in the city Thursday, killing three men and two women and wounding nine, Ukraine’s prosecutor general said. 

Russian troops have been trying to take Bakhmut for months, and the city, which once had 70,000 inhabitants, is under near-constant shelling.  

“If you are rational, law-abiding and patriotic citizens, you should leave the city immediately,” said Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk. She made the appeal via the Telegram messaging app Friday to what is believed to be about 6,000 people still in the city, in the Donetsk region.    

EU urges speedy munitions delivery

In his speech to the Munich Security Conference on Saturday, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak urged world leaders to provide additional arms and security guarantees to protect Ukraine and the rest of Europe from Russian aggression now and in the future. 

“Now is the moment to double down on our military support,” Sunak said.  

The European Union is urgently exploring ways for its member countries to team up to buy munitions to help Ukraine, following warnings from Kyiv that its forces need more supplies quickly, diplomats and officials said. 

EU foreign ministers are expected to discuss the idea of joint procurement of 155-millimeter artillery shells — badly needed by Kyiv — at a meeting in Brussels on Monday. 

“It is now the time, really, to speed up the production, and to scale up the production of standardized products that Ukraine needs desperately,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told the Munich Security Conference on Saturday. 

According to Reuters, the war in Ukraine has killed tens of thousands, uprooted millions from their homes, pummeled the global economy and made Putin a pariah in the West. 

The governor of Luhansk, one of two provinces in what is known as the Donbas, said ground and air attacks were increasing. 

“Today it is rather difficult on all directions,” Serhiy Haidai told local TV. “There are constant attempts to break through our defense lines,” he said of fighting near the city of Kreminna. 

The British Defense Ministry said Saturday in its daily intelligence update about Ukraine that it has become “increasingly difficult” for the Kremlin to insulate the Russian population from the war in Ukraine.  

 “A December 2022 Russian poll reported that 52% had either a friend or relative who had served in the so-called Special Military Operation,” the ministry said.   

Tatiana Vorozhko of VOA’s Ukrainian service contributed to this report. Some information came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
…

A group of exiled Iranians will increase support for opposition movements in the country so they can continue to pressure the authorities there amid a crackdown on protests, the last heir to the Iranian monarchy said Saturday.

Iran has been rocked by unrest since the death in police custody of a young Iranian Kurdish woman in September after she was detained for flouting a strict Islamic dress code. The protests are among the strongest challenges to the Islamic Republic since the revolution.

‘Maximum pressure’ and ‘maximum support’

Eight Iranian exiled dissidents, including Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of the toppled Shah, discussed ways of uniting a fragmented opposition earlier this month amid pro-government events marking the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution inside the country.

“We have to have a component of domestic pressure on the regime because external pressure by sanctions weakens the system, but it is not enough to do the job,” Pahlavi told Reuters in an interview on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference.

“We are looking at means on how we can support the movement back home,” Pahlavi said. “There is a lot of discussion on maximum pressure and more sanctions, but parallel to maximum pressure there needs to be maximum support.”

The Washington-based Pahlavi said the immediate focus would be to ensure Iranians had access to the internet, help finance labor strikes through a fund, and find ways to ease money transfers to Iran.

‘The good, bad and ugly’

Unlike in previous years, the Iranian government was not invited to Munich this year as a result of its crackdown, but also due to its support of Russia in the war in Ukraine.

Instead, opponents to the Iranian governments were invited, while anti-government rallies took place in Munich.

Pahlavi has lived in exile for nearly four decades, since his father, the U.S.-backed shah, was overthrown in the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Opposition to Iran’s clerical government is atomized, with no clear recognized leader. Pahlavi said the priority now was for unity, and in the end, a democratic system decided by Iranians.

It remains unclear how much support Pahlavi has on the ground, but there have been some pro- and anti-slogans in demonstrations. Many Iranians remember the Shah’s secret police, Savak, and Pahlavi said he condemned what had happened then.

“We have to look at the good, bad and ugly, and that’s the only way we can progress in [the] future,” he said, adding that Iran’s young population was savvy and knew that any future political system would need strong institutions to ensure the past was not repeated.

Western powers have been reluctant to speak to opponents to the ruling authorities, fearing a rupture in ties would harm efforts to release dozens of Western nationals held in Iran, but also kill any chance of reviving a nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers. However, that has begun to change.

French President Emmanuel Macron was filmed in Munich Friday with U.S.-based women’s rights advocate Masih Alinejad.

“I would be very happy to meet you all together because this message of unity is very important,” Macron said.
…

Bulgarian prosecutors have charged six people with human trafficking after 18 Afghan migrants were found dead Friday inside a truck dumped on a dirt road near the capital Sofia.

Prosecutors said the truck was abandoned near the village of Lokorsko after the driver and his companion found that many of the 52 migrants in the hidden compartments of the truck, which were isolated with foil, were dizzy and some had already died.

The truck driver and his companion were also charged over the deaths of the migrants, prosecutors said.

Despite strong and prolonged banging on the cabin, the driver refused to stop the truck earlier, the head of the National Investigative Service and deputy chief prosecutor Borislav Sarafov told reporters.

The deaths have shocked Bulgaria, in what is one of the worst incidents of its kind on the overland route across the Balkans into Europe.

Thousands of people fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East, Africa and Asia make the journey and Bulgaria has been trying to cope with an increased inflow of migrants from neighboring Turkey in the past year.

The 18 victims died of a combination of lack of oxygen in an enclosed space and difficulty breathing as they had been crammed into the truck “like in a tin can,” Sarafov said. “The victims died slowly and painfully.” 

“This case shows an extreme callousness and demonstrates that migrants are seen only as goods that should be shipped from one place to another, irrespective of whether they are alive or dead,” Sarafov said.

The other 34 migrants, who were rushed to hospitals Friday, remain in stable condition, officials said.

Five of those charged are in custody, while one of the suspected traffickers, who had managed to flee the country, is being sought with a European arrest warrant.

Prosecutors said the ring had trafficked migrants from the border with Turkey across Bulgaria to Serbia, from where they continued their journey mainly to Britain, Germany and France.
…

The Biden administration formally concluded that Russia has committed “crimes against humanity” during its nearly year-long invasion of Ukraine, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris said Saturday.

“In the case of Russia’s actions in Ukraine we have examined the evidence, we know the legal standards, and there is no doubt: these are crimes against humanity,” Harris, a former prosecutor, said at the Munich Security Conference.

“And I say to all those who have perpetrated these crimes, and to their superiors who are complicit in these crimes, you will be held to account.”

The official determination, which came at the end of a legal analysis led by the U.S. State Department, carries with it no immediate consequences for the ongoing war.

But Washington hopes that it could help further isolate Russian President Vladimir Putin and galvanize legal efforts to hold members of his government accountable through international courts and sanctions.

Harris’ speech comes as senior Western leaders meet in Munich to assess Europe’s worst conflict since World War II.  

She said Russia was now a “weakened” country after Biden led a coalition to punish Putin for the invasion, but Russia is only intensifying assaults in Ukraine’s east. Meanwhile, Ukraine is planning a spring counteroffensive, for which it is seeking more, heavier and longer-range weapons from its Western allies.

The nearly year-long war has killed tens of thousands, uprooted millions from their homes, pummeled the global economy and made Putin a pariah in the West.

Washington already had concluded that Russian forces were guilty of war crimes, as has a U.N.-mandated investigation, but the Biden administration conclusion that Russia’s actions amount to “crimes against humanity” implies a legal analysis that acts from murder to rape are widespread, systematic and intentionally directed against civilians. In international law, it is seen as a more serious offense.

The U.N.-backed Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine has not yet concluded that the war crimes it says it has identified amount to crimes against humanity.

‘Barbaric and inhumane’

In her remarks, Harris cited as “barbaric and inhumane” the scores of victims found in Bucha shortly after Russia’s invasion last February; the March 9 bombing of a Mariupol maternity hospital, that killed three people, including a child; and the sexual assault of a four-year-old by a Russian soldier that was identified by the U.N. report.

Organizations supported by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) have documented more than 30,000 war crimes incidents since the invasion, according to the U.S. government.  

Ukrainian officials said they were investigating the shelling of the city of Bakhmut just this week as a possible war crime.  

Russia, which says it is conducting a “special military operation” in Ukraine to eliminate threats to its security and protect Russian speakers, has denied intentionally targeting civilians or committing war crimes.  

“Let us all agree: on behalf of all the victims, both known and unknown, justice must be served,” Harris said.

The Biden administration has sought to bring alleged war criminals to justice, including training Ukrainian investigators, imposing sanctions, blocking visas and hiking penalties under U.S. war crimes laws.

Washington has spent some $40 million on the efforts so far and says it is working with Congress to secure an additional $38 million for the efforts.

But the Biden administration’s ability to enforce any such efforts beyond its borders – and certainly within Russia – is limited. Collecting evidence in the war-torn country, too, has proven difficult.

International legal bodies also are constrained. At the International Criminal Court, for instance, jurisdiction extends only to member states and states that have agreed to its jurisdiction, such as Ukraine but not Russia. Kyiv has been pushing for a new international war crimes organization to focus on the Russian invasion, which Moscow has opposed.

“If Putin thinks he can wait us out, he is badly mistaken,” Harris said. “Time is not on his side.”
…

Human Rights Watch said Saturday that the monthlong refusal of Russian officials to provide information about the whereabouts of a political prisoner has raised concerns that he has been “forcibly disappeared.  

Andrey Pivovarov’s family and lawyer have not been in contact with him since January 18, when he sent a letter informing them that he was being transferred from a St. Petersburg prison to a prison colony.  

HRW said in a statement, “The authorities should immediately quash his politically motivated imprisonment and unconditionally release Pivovarov and, in the meantime, urgently allow his family and lawyer to meet with him.”

In July, Pivovarov received a four-year sentence for leading an “undesirable organization.”  He had headed up the now-defunct pro-democracy Open Russia Civic Movement.

He has been shuffled from one detention center to another since December and his family and lawyer have not been notified of his locations.  

Damelya Aitkhozhina, HRW’s Europe and Central Asia researcher, said, “Both Pivovarov and his family, who suffer not knowing his whereabouts, are being punished for his peaceful criticism of the government.”
…